MPs call for a return to three-month recess

Ministers are under pressure from MPs to scrap the new Commons hours and reinstate the three-month summer break.

Calls for the September session to be scrapped came after MPs returned this week to find Westminster looking like a "building site". Ongoing repair works have seen the library closed, the tea-room shut and various corridors completely blocked off.

The disruption is so bad it caused the Speaker to alter the route of his procession to the Commons chamber - breaking decades of tradition. MPs now want the Commons authorities to abandon the two-week sitting in September and revert to old hours which saw the Commons in recess from the end of July until the beginning of October.

The changes were introduced by Robin Cook two years ago amid complaints about the length of the MPs' summer break.